The present invention concerns a portable aerosol-type fire-fighting protection device.
Current portable extinguishers consist of a container or cylinder provided with a handle and a nozzle from which the extinguishing jet is caused to issue, solely by means of a second container or cylinder which is within the first mentioned container or cylinder and which contains a compressed gas. These extinguishers are heavy, bulky and inconvenient to use.
For fixed flame-extinguishing installations, it is already known to use potassium carbonate, which is transformed from a solid into an aerosol at a given temperature around 300xc2x0 C. The grains of potassium carbonate in suspension are of a diametral size of around 4 microns and, in the proximity of a flame, they replace the air and thus the combustion-supporting oxygen. They are particularly effective, by virtue precisely of their very small grain size, in smothering any incipient fire.
The extinguishing capability of 1 kg of potassium carbonate corresponds to that of 1 m3 of water.
In addition the exothermically formed carbonate is completely anhydrous and can thus be used for extinguishing an incipient fire on electrical equipment without incurring any risk of conduction caused by electrolytic phenomena of the potassium salt.
In accordance with the present invention there is provided a portable aerosol-type fire-fighting protection device comprising a hollow body which includes in its interior, and communicating with the exterior by way of an opening, a chamber for accommodating a solid substance capable of being transformed at a given temperature into an aerosol with flame-extinguishing properties and being discharged as such by way of the opening, and a handle which is fixed with respect to the hollow body and in the interior of which there is a space; wherein the accommodating chamber has an electrical triggering resistor supplied by way of a switch from batteries accommodated in the space in the handle.